


Distance Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

by KtheG



Category: Warrior Nun (TV)
Genre: F/F, Space AU, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:54:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26505463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KtheG/pseuds/KtheG
Summary: Ava's an astronaut and Beatrice works ground control.
Relationships: Sister Beatrice/Ava Silva, Sister Lilith/Shotgun Mary (Warrior Nun)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 148





	Distance Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by some artwork of Bean's.

Ava had wanted to be an astronaut her entire life. Ever since she learned about the moon landing in school, she had been aiming for the skies. She wasn't necessarily the smartest in her class, but she had the drive. Her stint in the Air Force didn't hurt either (on paper, in real life it had left her in quite a spot.) But she learned, and she got good at one thing (physics) and that had gotten her a spot on the mission to Venus (because the mission to Mars was overrated.) So she had been on the team of astronauts testing out pressure suits and figuring out how to move on a planet that had the surface pressure strong enough to crush a submarine like a tin can. She had learned how to drive the little buggy, get herself from an spacecraft into the buggy and back into the craft without having to touch the surface of the toxic planet, but most importantly, she had learned that being an astronaut was lonely.

It was so lonely. She was one of three selected candidates for the Venus mission, and while it was cool, everybody was more fascinated with the Mars mission, with setting up a colony on a planet that would take eight months to reach. So she ate lunch with Lilith and Mary, her two mission mates and would talk with a few of the engineering techs who were helping them survive in their little tin can, but ultimately, when she went home at night, it was just her and her little pet turtle. (A dog was too much hassle for an astronaut given the hours, so she settled for Norman.)

But when their new ground crew came in? Ava felt as if she had an opportunity to make friends outside of the other astronauts. She was prepared to charm their pants off to make some friends, and so she did. Chanel and Camila and Beatrice joined their table in the cafeteria in between training missions and simulations. The six of them got close, and for the first time, Ava didn't feel so alone. Even Lilith was talking to her more often.

The only problem that Ava had, was she was falling in love with Beatrice. Their chief communications person was _so pretty_ and _so smart_ that Ava couldn't help but want to be around her all the time. Ava's struggle was knowing that she would be in space, on a possibly deadly mission that she may not come back from, and so she didn't want to get attached, but it was _so hard_ to keep up her self-imposed walls. Mary and Lilith had an easier time, they were going on this mission with the love of their lives. Ava was the third wheel, but they had all known each other for long enough that she trusted the two women to put the mission first.

So when Beatrice and Ava started staying late to go over mission stats? Ava knew it was too late. She and Beatrice had gotten too close too fast for Ava to make sure her walls were cemented. One night, they were sitting in mission control, just looking at the map of stars that Ava would be navigating by on Venus and Beatrice was explaining the legends and myths behind the constellations when Ava stopped paying attention to her words and started paying attention to the way Bea's lips curved around Artemis's name. The way her voice would take on a reverence when talking about the hunt and all the women that were said to have joined it (Ava knew the story, it was her favorite because she's gay, obviously) and Ava couldn't help but hope that Beatrice's knowledge of such a myth was some clue she was supposed to be picking up on.

At the end of the night, they had fallen asleep together, cuddled in the blanket fort they had set up, and that's how they woke. In the soft glow of the computer simulated stars above them. That moment, Ava began to regret keeping her walls so high. The isolation she kept herself in had gotten her this far, but it also kept other people at a distance, and now, Ava was weeks away from going on a possible suicide mission and she's finally found someone worth staying on Earth for.

On the day of the launch, Beatrice had been running around like a chicken with her head cut off, making sure everything was set to run as smoothly as possible, and Ava hadn't seen her all day. They had gotten close in the last few weeks, progressing to sharing sweet kisses with one another over topography maps, but Ava regretted not taking her out for real. So when the chief gave her a fifteen minute warning, Ava sprinted to mission control, looking for Beatrice.

When she found the other woman, hair falling out of her neat bun, pencil shoved behind her ear, looking as pretty as Ava had ever seen her? Ava grabbed Beatrice by the shoulders and kissed her, long and sweet, trying to convey all the emotion she was feeling. Beatrice kissed her back before pulling away with a whispered "I love you, come back to me."

Ava left her with one last kiss, a quiet "I love you too" and then she was swept up in getting dressed in her space suit, pressurizing and fixed with oxygen to keep her brain sharp for the journey. She sat in the cockpit, feeling extremely out of place in the middle of Lilith and Mary (all three of them had gone to engineering to get the pilots seat moved to one side so the love birds could sit together) and knew that she would come back home safely if it was the last thing she did. Lilith and Mary were holding hands over her lap (something they had practiced in every simulated launch that the heads of NASA hated, but Ava secretly loved. It felt like she was a part of their story.)

Beatrice's voice was in Ava's ear the whole time, letting Ava know she wasn't alone anymore and that she had something to come back to. Ava couldn't help but smile, knowing that her search for the stars had brought her to the brightest star in her life. The launch was smooth, and now, all Ava had to do was spend the next three months with hopeless romantics and listen for Beatrice's voice.

There were few problems over the next 90 days, mostly just issues with the playing cards escaping someone’s grip and spoiling a round of poker, and Ava talked to Beatrice most nights. They shared stories, Ava making up a story about Earth, giving her a mighty legend to fit that of the other planets while Beatrice would tell Ava about another version of Artemis's huntresses. Despite being thousands of miles from Earth, Ava had never felt more connected to the planet she had longed so long to escape. Beatrice showed her she wasn't alone, that she could be happy, and Ava was truly happy for the first time in a long time. She was achieving her dream, and she had the promise of a satisfying life upon her return.

The landing would be the hardest part, Ava being the pilot had to make sure she didn't come in too hot or on the wrong angle while Mary kept them pressurized and Lilith kept her eye for any dust storms. They had to do a fly by landing on the first attempt, a wind shear making it impossible to land, but their second attempt was a success. Mary maneuvered the buggy out of the cargo hold and in its deployment position, ready to ferry the three of them to a designated research point. They could only spend an estimated 2 and 1/4 hours on the planet’s surface before returning to the space ship, and so they had to get as much data as they could. Lilith was in charge of collecting air particles to examine the suspicious presence of acids while Mary was to look into the surface. Ava's job in comparison seemed rather boring, but as a physicist, she was charged with playing golf on the surface of a planet.

They made sure their suit cameras were on and set off in the buggy for the research point, a small crater caused by a meteor and not a sun flare. It took them about 20 minutes to get there, leaving them with about an hour for research before they had to head back.

Stepping out of the buggy was weird. Ava immediately felt the pressure of the planet, her suit seeming to stick to her body more than it had even in the 30 foot pool they had practiced on. Her arms were heavy, and each step took more effort, but she had been working out for years in order to be able to walk on a dense planet. She set her small pile of golf balls on the ground and pulled out a nine iron made completely of wood (for some reason, it was less likely to be crushed on such a dense planet than actual iron) and lined up a few shots.

They weren't pretty at all, and the ball hardly even traveled, but the camera on Ava's suit was able to pick of velocity nonetheless, and so she took a few more attempts, trying to hit the ball as hard as she could. The best she got was about a five foot chip shot that took her full might, as if she had been driving the ball on Earth. The five foot walk and the golfing had been exhausting, and so she set off back towards the buggy, getting ready to drive them all back to the shuttle.

She didn't realize how quickly time could pass when you're standing on a planet that's only 67 million miles from the Sun and where one day was an average of 116 Earth days. An hour seemed like nothing in comparison, and soon, the women were headed back towards the ship. They would be there for another three days, never once experiencing a sunset and living in a sea of green. But Ava's job was done, other than piloting the buggy, and so she settled in for a peaceful few days.

On the last day of research, they had run into a small technical issue with the buggy, which caused them to be out in the extreme pressure for longer than they had expected, and when the three women made it back onto the ship, they were short of breath and frazzled. Beatrice's voice was the first thing Ava heard as she relearned how to breathe, and she was confused as to how she could hear Beatrice, having been out of contact with the other woman for days.

"Breathe, Ava, you're okay. You gotta get up and into the pressure chamber." Ava acted on autopilot, hauling up Lilith and Mary with her, making it inside the pressure chamber before collapsing onto the floor. Not once did Bea's voice leave her ear (and Ava's pretty sure she passed out for longer than a few minutes) but she had never felt more connected to another person. 90.5 million miles and she had never felt less alone.

Once they had all recovered, Ava went to look at the call logs and couldn't find evidence of the transmission that arguably saved their lives, and so she vowed to ask Beatrice about it as soon as possible. Mary and Lilith worked to stow away their research, Ava backed up all their video to the hard drive and got the ship ready for takeoff. They would have to leave the buggy behind, the poor vehicle wasn't made of 7 tons of aluminum and had taken a beating over the last few days, but Ava made sure to take one last picture of the green planet before she started the launch sequence to take them home.

The first thing she heard when they were back in vocal range of Earth was the cheers coming from mission control, but the only voice she wanted to hear was missing. They had another 97 day journey back to Earth, and Ava just wanted to know that Beatrice was okay, that Beatrice knew she was alive. She didn't have to wait long, just until after dinner, when she heard Beatrice calling for her over their communication link.

"I missed you."

"I missed you too, more than you could know." Ava was still tired, space taking a lot out of a person, so their conversation was short, but she did notice the way Beatrice's face lit up when they talked. They said left the call with "I love you"’s as they would for every call from now on. Ava would call Beatrice at all times of the day, trying to get away from Mary and Lilith who seemed to revel in each other at being alive any chance they could get, but Ava always had Beatrice to distract her.

Landing on Earth would be much easier than trying to land on a planet that was trying to crush your vehicle. All Ava had to do was deploy the parachute's and sit back and relax as they fell into the Pacific Ocean. The Navy was waiting for them, and they were quickly escorted into quarantine where they would wait for a few days (almost a whole week) to make sure they hadn't picked up any radiation poisoning from the sun or any sickness related to the strange atmosphere on Venus.

The first time Ava laid eyes on Beatrice? She cried. She had never felt so much gratitude at being alive in her life as she did in that one moment. Three nine month tours had never made her miss someone as much as a six month trip across space had made her miss Beatrice. And so the moment they could touch? Ava took full advantage.


End file.
